The work of late painter Pat Passlof will be the focus of a joint exhibition of the Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University and Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center in Asheville from Thursday, Jan. 26, through Friday, May 25.

The exhibition, which will simultaneously occupy space in the Cullowhee and Asheville venues, will open with a reception at 6 p.m. Jan. 26 at the WCU Fine Art Museum. The event is free and the public is invited. For the opening reception, the WCU College of Fine and Performing Arts is sponsoring a round-trip bus ride from Asheville to Cullowhee with an additional pickup location in Waynesville.

Fiddler Ian Moore will be at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva on Thursday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. for a free public performance in the Community Room.

Moore, who lives in Sylva, is originally from New York City and is a classically trained violinist. However, since moving to Jackson County in the 1990s, he has immersed himself in traditional Appalachian music, as well as more eclectic jazz, Celtic, and folk mixes. “In the time I’ve lived in Sylva,” says Moore, “I’ve explored a wide range of acoustic music styles: old timey ballads, blues, bluegrass, rags and reels, hornpipes and hoedowns, polkas, waltzes, gospel, swing jazz, Cajun and Irish tunes, old honkeytonk numbers, jugband pieces, and rockabilly.”

The Smoky Mountain town of Pigeon Forge, Tenn., will present the 12th annual Saddle Up, Feb. 23-26, 2012. The four-day event is a tribute to the American West and is filled with concerts by cowboy musicians and poets, a chuckwagon cookoff and other activities for the entire family.

Saddle Up is part of Pigeon Forge Winterfest, a four-month season of activities that begins in November and continues through February.

The Lanier Library of Tryon, North Carolina is seeking entries for the Sidney Lanier Award Poetry Competition. This annual competition is open to poets from North and South Carolina whose works have not previously been published in book form. The deadline for entries to be mailed is February 15, 2012.

$800 in prizes will be awarded in the adult competition and additional prizes worth $175 will be awarded to the winning entries from a high school students. Other poems worthy of an honorable mention will also be recognized. The judges of the competition are the North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers and the award-winning poet and nonfiction author from South Carolina, John Lane.